South African GP, 1982

The new season began early and in problematic fashion with the drivers going on strike because of a form which they had to sign in order to get a superlicence. This led to an unpleasant weekend of controversy.

The winter months had seen several important changes. Brabham had continued the development of the new BMW turbocharged engine and this appeared in the two new BT50 chassis. Nelson Piquet was joined in the team by Riccardo Patrese. With Siegfried Stohr having quit F1 Arrows had hired Marc Surer and Mauro Baldi but in pre-season testing in Kyalami Surer had a big accident at Leeukop corner and broken both feet and so the team hired Brian Henton.

Williams had lost Alan Jones but had hired Keke Rosberg from Fittipaldi to be Carlos Reutemann's teammate and the pair continued to race with FW07-based cars. Fittipaldi was struggling and ran only one car for Chico Serra.

Because of the drivers' strike practice was confined to one day and so the grid was rather hit-and-miss. Arnoux was on pole with Piquet second and Villeneuve third. Then came Patrese, Prost and Pironi, making it six turbocharged cars in the first six places. The best of the rest were the two Williams's with Rosberg quicker than Reutemann. They were followed by Watson, Alboreto and Laffite.

In the race Arnoux took the lead but Prost made a good start to power his way to second place by the end of the first lap. Then came the two Ferraris with Villeneuve ahead of Pironi. Then came Rosberg under pressure from Patrese, Laffite, Alboreto and the rest. Piquet had made a bad start and was down in 13th position.

Early on Piquet went off because of fading brakes and retired. Soon afterwards Rosberg dropped behind Patrese. Not long afterwards Villeneuve went out with an engine failure and while Rosberg hoped all the turbos would follow things began to go wrong for him. His gear lever fell apart and he soon slipped behind Reutemann. Things changed at the front when Arnoux came upon backmarkers on lap 14 and had to lift. In a flash Prost was ahead. Pironi was third with Patrese fourth followed by Reutemann and Rosberg. On lap 18 Patrese disappeared with an engine failure and six laps later Pironi pitted for new tires and dropped out of the action. This meant that Watson and Lauda were fifth and sixth. That ordered remained unchanged until Pironi came charging back and overtook Lauda. On lap 41 Prost stopped for tires, leaving Arnoux in the lead but the little Frenchman's recovery drive was even more impressive than Pironi and so he took second place a lap after the Ferrari driver had got ahead of Rosberg. Alain then chased after Arnoux and took the lead with 10 laps to go. Pironi's race ended early with engine trouble and then four laps from the finish Arnoux slipped behind Reutemann. Lauda finished fourth having overtaken Watson and Rosberg